Interview with SJB Colombo Mayoral Candidate “We don’t want President’s money because Colombo generates Rs. 17 billion” - Dr. Ruvaiz Haniffa (SJB)

Senior medical practitioner, lecturer at the medical faculties of Colombo and Kelaniya, former President of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, social activist and policy maker Dr. Ruvaiz Haniffa is the Mayoral candidate for Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) at the May 6 Local council Election. In an interview with Daily Mirror, Dr, Haniffa warns that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s statement of withholding funding to local government is a danger to democracy.  Excerpts of the interview: 

Q We know that you are a professional medical practitioner, lecturer and involved in many policy decision making panels. But from where did your interests in politics begin?  

Yes, that’s a very interesting question. I never intended doing politics, but I entered because of an ideological reason I had in my mind. Because we are living in a democracy, which is a very, very good thing and in a democracy, you must have many voices. You must have capitalists and socialists and then you must have revolutionists, Marxists, neoliberals and the whole range, you know. So I thought I am by nature a capitalist. By that what I mean is for me capitalism is the individual improves himself by himself with the aid of the society and so on. And then he becomes wealthy or educated or becomes a good sportsman. He becomes somebody and then he has to raise his fellow beings with him. That is capitalism. So, but in the past for a few decades, I saw that our capitalistic parties didn’t do that. Though they developed as individuals, they didn’t necessarily lift the society.

So this message had caused some dissatisfaction among the voting public with regard to capitalism in Sri Lanka, in particular. Therefore, we have shifted towards a socialistic political culture, which I don’t think is right or suitable. I respect socialism for its ideology, hence there is no problem and they should exist. They should practise their policies.

So, like they are telling their story, I thought I also should come and relate this story to the voters who are voting in Colombo and other provincial elections. Therefore, I thought I must surface. There was no opportunity to surface through my career or the other work I do. The opportunity was offered to me by the SJB, which is a humanistic capitalist party. So, I took it up and entered politics to tell this story. 

Q  As you rightly said, the capitalistic system introduced, especially after 1977, faced lot of allegations, especially against the government that came to power in 1977. The typical example for this is Colombo, where the gap between the poor and the rich is very wide.  And now you are contesting as the Mayoral candidate for Colombo and how do you see this poverty gap?s you rightly said, the capitalistic system introduced, especially after 1977, faced lot of allegations, especially against the government that came to power in 1977. The typical example for this is Colombo, where the gap between the poor and the rich is very wide.  And now you are contesting as the Mayoral candidate for Colombo and how do you see this poverty gap?

Yes, so this is exactly why I have come forward and, yes, the gap is huge.

So we need to rectify that. My party, the SJB, has understood this and they have undergone two national level election defeats. We are a party that has existed only five years, so we are a very new party and we are the very first local government representatives from the SJB who are contesting at this election.

So we are aware of this huge inequality and inequity in resources and lifestyle and economic circumstances for the citizens of Colombo. So what we want to do is to provide the infrastructure for people and for them to be given an equal opportunity to develop themselves. So by doing that, I think poorer classes of the society would make greater development. We also want to continue and sustain the people who belong to the middle class and so on.

So we don’t want to harm that, but we want to balance the scales through our policy documents, which we have submitted for the voters’ consideration. 

Q Colombo is not only just another municipality, but the commercial capital of the country. In that sense you have a huge responsibility to uplift its quality, standards and specially the surroundings. You’re comments?  

Yes. You see, Colombo is a very cosmopolitan city and we have a resident population of about 800,000, but we have a transient population of about 200,000, who come to schools and about 500,000 who come for jobs. So at any given time, there are about 1.5 million citizens within the city of Colombo. So this is a two-pronged thing. So we have addressed the issues of the resident of Colombo as well as treat our guests who come into Colombo with the traditional hospitality we have as Sri Lankans. So let me take the guests first. When you come to Colombo, there is no decent place you can go to when you are in need of a toilet facility. There’s no decent place you can go to, to have a cup of tea. Or for that matter, if you are a young person and coming for an interview or an urgent matter to Colombo, you might want to spend some time, to have a change or have a wash.

I have encountered this as a medical officer many a time. We need to provide that infrastructure first to the outsider and then to the resident. We have a huge set of problems. I’m not saying that the municipal councils before us had not done anything. They have done a tremendous amount of work to bring to Colombo to where it is today. It’s a lovely city. It’s a clean city, but we can do better.  What we have been doing is we have been revolving around the problem.

What we need to do is provide solutions to evolve out of the problem. So this is what we plan to do in our 14-point agenda, which we have presented as a manifesto through three critical areas of administration. 

Q And your policy statement shows that you have plans to digitalise and use technology to help administration and governance. And also another big issue is the corruption, especially in the CMC. How are you trying to get rid of that? 

So those are the three pillars of our administration, if we get.

It is through these pillars which we will be implementing our policy and addressing the very issues you mentioned. So the first thing is we want to have an effective and efficient administration. We want to have responsibility and accountability and we want to have real-time transparency. So if you give me time, I will quickly tell you how this will lead to less corruption, bribery and waste. For example, let’s take a sewerage problem. For the residents of Colombo, I think for those who live in the less fortunate areas of Colombo, this is a huge problem and it’s completely unhygienic and unacceptable given that we are living in a modern cosmopolitan area such as Colombo. So when your lines overflow, there are underlying reasons for that; you know, long-term and short-term.

But let’s take a quick example. When your sewer overflows, right now you merely complain to the CMC and then you don’t know who took down the complaint. There is no follow-up during a reasonable period of time.

This can be made effective by digitalising the system, by introducing a complaint system, where you will get a reference number. So with that reference number, you also know you have complained. The system also knows that you have complained.

The bureaucrats and the political leadership also knows you have complained. So if we don’t respond to it, I’m not saying we solve your issue, but respond to it within a reasonable period of time, then you have a right to ask us, why haven’t you responded? So that is where the accountability, the transparency and accountability and responsibility come in. Then we will ask the officials or the official supervising the employees below him will ask why didn’t you go? So if that is also not happening, the senior management and the political authority whom you are going to vote for will have the ability to ask, why didn’t you respond?

So by linking like this, you are not talking to anybody, you are doing a system thing. So the interaction to get your job done need not be corrupt, there is no need to offer bribes and there is no need to waste. 

So we hope that this simple administration via digitalisation helps, and this expands throughout the system in getting your permits for businesses, your house plans approved, even your garbage being collected, approval for entertainment purposes, hire a hall or obtain permits.

So, hopefully, we want to digitalise all this and through our three pillars, reduce corruption, bribery and wastage, which has become endemic part of, I think we can improve administration across the country. 

Q The country and the government is dreaming of making Sri Lanka the tourist hotspot of the region. But we see that we don’t get positive responses from tourists regarding Colombo. How do you take up this challenge? And how safe are the tourists in the Colombo City? 

Yes. So the safety, especially with regard to the females, is a big problem, not only regarding tourists and even with regard to the residents of Colombo. I will come to the tourist problem a little later. So tourists coming into Colombo, now tend to use the place as a transit point. They come in, stay one or two days and then move on. But we have the potential to become a tourist hub. For example, conferences, this MICE (Meeting, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions industry) tourism, you know, you can’t, not that you can’t, I’m not competing with Ella or Bento or anywhere else.

It’s unlikely that you’ll go to Ella and have a, mice meeting, where you come for one or two days and there you go to relax. 

So we need to promote this. So our private sector has developed the infrastructure. We have beautiful hotels coming up. We have conference halls and so on and so forth. And also the tourism related to sports.

We have many tennis tournaments, which are held overseas and the ones that are held in Colombo. So we need to develop the infrastructure also. So it’s all an infrastructural thing.

So for that, we have a special plan to improve the ground situation in Colombo and provide the necessary infrastructure. So very quickly touching on the security of females in Colombo I think it’s a huge problem, especially in the densely populated areas. So again, we want to have something like female safe zones. We believe that most of these things happen at the dead of night, you know in the dark. So we want to give proper illumination.

So that is one of the duties of the municipality, to give lights through the MMCs to these public areas. So we’ll do it through the efficient allocation of these bulbs and so on and maintenance. We can provide the bulbs, but they have to be maintained.

So we need to start these systems and also, we are also promoting the product of free education. We are also promoting free education, especially in urban areas.

Q You have been promoting education and how can the municipality be a help to children’s education?  

So with regard to education, we cannot get directly involved with the curriculum and so on. But what we can do is to support the extracurricular activity or the co-curricular activity. I’ll give you an example. For example, when you go to a very densely populated area, what we call, Wathu (tenement gardens) area, the houses are very small. Maybe there are two or three rooms in a hall. So if there’s a girl or boy of any age studying there, it’s a bit difficult task. But we have a massive network of community centres and currently the community centres are mainly used for weddings and parties.

We are not saying not to use them for weddings and parties. That’s okay. But what if we can create a tiny area with a couple of desks, with a couple of comfortable study desks, chairs, proper illumination with a little ventilation and a fan and also with some internet facilities for children to come and read, say from 7 to 10. No tuition classes, but create a place to come and study on their own, write something, read something and draw something.

So we are going to do that. So if we can give Wi-Fi to Galle Face and Independence Square, I’m sure our telecom providers will be happy to support us and give Wi-Fi to these community centres. This will enable children to study on their own. I am not talking about tuition.

We are not going to give these centres to conduct tuition classes, instead they are for self-study. They need a place to reflect and come and do their work. Everything can’t be a tuition, people have to sit down and do the hard work themselves.

So we will provide the infrastructure there and through that, we can support education within the city of Colombo. 

Q Colombo is a typical example to show that Sri Lanka is multi-ethnic, multi-religious and has multi-cultural diversity. If you become mayor of Colombo, how important is maintaining this unity and diversity?

 Absolutely. It’s the core of who you are being Sri Lankan. We are all Sri Lankans, but we have different cultures, different religions, different ethnicities, and different beliefs and value systems. These all only make us Sri Lankans. So Colombo is the only place in the country where you can see Sri Lanka within 37 square kilometres. And also, there are rich things about our festivals, our food habits and culture, and so on.  So I would  take this opportunity to link this to your tourism question.

You take Aluthkade or Hulftsdorp, for example. They’re absolute, internet hits. You know they’re gone viral; tourists come there, even local people go there. But it’s a disgrace going there.

It is so unhygienic, it is so unclean, and it’s an embarrassment, and you know, it’s a scar on the face of Colombo in terms of environment. So now, through the CMC, if we get elected, we are not going to teach the people to cook. We don’t want to interfere with their entrepreneurship, but we as city fathers need to put the infrastructure properly.

We need to build good pavements, good drainage systems, and we need to clear the rats and you know, cockroaches, and make the place more hygienic, and introduce more secure food standards for the hygiene of the consumer. You know, so we need to get our game up. So through that, we can show cultural diversity.

For example, that’s the area of street food. Maybe we can have that in North Colombo, where we have a dominant Tamil population, we can have our Sri Lankan Tamil cuisine and coming back to other areas, our Sinhalese food, which is completely unheard of in other parts of the world. We need to upgrade that also. 

Q Colombo is the bastion of UNP, the Green Party. But now the political waves have changed. We don’t see the presence of the Green Party. Do you think that you with SJB, with a green and yellow combination, will be able to win the Colombo voters? And what is your message to your voters? 

 So, what I want to say to the public through your media is that we are at a very critical juncture in our democracy, because His Excellency the President is trying to say that if you are not from his party, that is a socialist party, he is not going to allocate funds for such municipal councillors and provincial Pradeshiya Sabha. This seems a very trivial statement, but it’s a very dangerous statement when you take democracy itself. Actually, we don’t want the President’s money because Colombo generates Rs. 17 billion in revenue and you know, we really don’t need ‘his’ money to develop the city of Colombo. But coming back to my point about this President’s statement; that means he is talking about him and his party. So, aren’t there other parties?

So, I look at Colombo as a picture, so don’t paint it red. There are other people who have views, let them express. If not, what the President can say, the next time elections come around, we won’t let people with other ideologies to contest.

 This is why I say that this President’s statement of withholding the funding for local governments is a danger to democracy. So therefore, I want the voter to consider these facts.

So, you as a voter have a responsibility to exercise your democratic thinking.

So I hope we will build Colombo into a happier city and that is what our theme is, to make Colombo a happier Colombo.